I came across this blog entry listing
favorite fictional characters. So what's nondual about it? These
are characters who have broken through, or probed deeply the
skin of the world, which is made of mental constructs.
Captain Ahab, as I see it, is the most nondual on this list, with
Ishmael holding onto

his condition of being the witness. Ahab let
go of even that and merged with the All. Which I plan to do as
soon Friends is over.

One's cultural experiences are often as
vivid as one's 'real' life. I can remember seeing the Death Star
explode, the seats in the theater (Swagath in Bangalore)
creaking, popcorn and Thums-up. I can remember wiping away a tear
when Oy, the billy-bumbler is killed when fighting Mordred
Deschain in The Dark Tower. Musical memories resonate through one
when a chord of a familiar song plays on the radio -
"Fever" reminds one of a desolate night when one
realized the fragility of young romance, You Look Wonderful
Tonight has a celebratory tinge of a new year's dawn.

Some characters become part of our lives
while we experience their virtual lives, and live on after their
fictive universe is snuffed, or they themselves are. Here's my
subjective list of my favorite dead (fictional) characters:

* Captain Ahab
from Moby-Dick: Although I'd personally identify more
with Ishmael than the idealistic Captain Ahab, he survives the
fatal chase, and thence must be considered immortal in the
fictiverse of the novel. Captain Ahab, on the other hand, has a
glorious and 'clear spirit', and an engulfing end that is in line
with his life's mission to be at one with the whale and the sea.
"Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the
full of the flood;  and I feel now like a billow that's all
one crested comb, Starbuck. I am old;  shake hands with me,
man."

* Darth
Vader/Anakin Skywalker: From Ahab's rigidity of
character to Anakin's vacillation and need to find identity might
be a galactic leap, yet there is much in common between them -
Lord Vader's senseless cruelty even after losing the object of
his original quest can be contrasted with Ahab's determination to
persevere after an unattainable goal. They differ in one
significant aspect - Vader is redeemed before his end, and steps
back from the brink of the abyss. I can watch the series end to
end a gazillion times before I die, and probably will.

* Kenny from SouthPark: "But Kenny dies all the time!" - SouthPark
has, for all it's sophomoric humor, succeeded in going places and
exploring facets of society that more genteel cultural creations
shy away from. Kenny's ritualistic death may seem senseless, but
is often the catharsis for deriving the true moral of the story,
whether it is the Schiavo-like near-death of Best Friends Forever
or the post-9/11 "Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants"
which expressed the traditional requiem somewhat differently as
"Oh Allah!, Koshtand Keyvan o!"

Minor
exegesis: numerous characters are resurrected by the force of the
narrative - Kenny, Superman, Mr Spock... one shall refrain from
choosing other characters that are undead in this manner.

* Neo, or Thomas
Anderson: The Christ of programmers, the avenging angel
who rescues the world from the machines, Neo is an archetypal
hero; in his final act, he obtains the trade-off that those who
achieve awareness shall be free of The Matrix.

* Sherlock Holmes:
The Master presents a special problem to the Holmesian
aficionado. His death is never explicitly stated, thus, in the
fictiverse, he lives on forever. At the same time, the Final
Problem saw his apparent demise, and he was never quite the same
after, and may indeed have been a different person. His
personality, from his analytical, modus ponens approach to
problem-solving, to his fastidiousness have made him a memorable
person, and to me, a critical role model.

I made every
disposition of my property before leaving England and handed it
to my brother Mycroft. Pray give my greetings to Mrs. Watson, and
believe me to be, my dear fellow